Two articles noted. The first is one Mom grabbed from the Chicago Sun-Times to bring up to Thanksgiving dinner at Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen's, and is about a girl I knew in high school, Molly McNett, turned award-winning author. I didn't really know her: she was a senior when I was a freshman, one of the leaders in our exceptional vocal music ( Read more... )

Was this the most alarmist headline that the Times could come up with this morning? No noting that the other major world religions have demonstrated no intrinsic initiative on their own to participate in hip and cool dialogue? No mentioning that Pela, while "center-right" and therefore suspect, is an atheist philosopher who has seen the ( Read more... )

Briefly noted: the ongoing dialogue makes a blip on the news radar. I note that the AP version of the story contextualizes it as a Vatican backing-up from the Regensburg Address in 2006, while the CNS version of the story contextualizes it as a positive result of the Common Word initiative from the following year. Even in the little stories, a ( Read more... )

Ill. Univ. Top Cop: 'I Lost 5 People'
Muslims More Numerous Than Catholics
‘With a Few More Brains ...’ By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Students of Virginity

( Read more... )

As I'm curious to see how the very public conversion of Magdi Cristiano Allam to Catholicism plays out, particularly given the international media coverage of the event, I tossed a bunch of news stories related to it (and a few that really weren't, but sort of thematically caught my eye as I thought about these things) into the journal for keeping ( Read more... )

A rather provocative entry I copied over from Whispers in the Loggia, noting the incredibly public (and daring) conversion of a prominent Italian media figure from Islam to Christianity, celebrated liturgically by Pope Benedict XVI himself at the Easter Vigil at Saint Peter's. Interestingly, he issues just as bold a challenge to Christianity and ( Read more... )

As an academic, I have a particular interest in the subject of Secularism as a religious/anti-religious force in Western history. As I watch such dynamics play out in contemporary culture, I cannot help but notice various things. One such observation concerns the ideology we call Multiculturalism. On the surface of things, Multiculturalism ( Read more... )

Dan sent me the link to this story from the apparently award-winning Brit blog called Cranmer.

Iraq and the genocide of Assyrian ChristiansIt is perhaps one of the great ironies of the whole Iraq debacle that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair - two of the most avowedly Christian leaders of recent times - should have created a situation which ( Read more... )

Updated:2007-05-17 11:47:33
Convert or Die? Pakistani Christians Seek HelpBy MUNIR AHMAD (AP ( Read more... )

I walked Julie back to her dorm a while ago, after having hung out here for yet another evening of two highly-ADHD people jabbering at one another full-speed with digressions splattering everywhere like wreckage from a crash. Or maybe I should say like spilled beer,
( Read more... )